Today's topic on Whatever-Wednesday is COSPLAY. I've mentioned it in several entries already and today I'll explain it, for those who have never heard of it before.
Cosplay is a mixture of costume and play, so these 2 words are also the center of "doing cosplay".
So you wear a costume of the characterof your choice and then you play / act / behave yourself like this character used to be in some kind.
In my opinion some go a bit too far - if the char is not talking the cosplayer are not doing either (e.g. Mana from Malice Mizer), or when the character is "creeping around" and touching everything with 2 finger (L from Death Note)
There are also very many shops that specialized on cosplay, e.g. in Akiba or Ikebukuro, especially the wigs and the other props are a paradise for Cosplayers
At Tokyo Game Show and other events you can see many cosplayers, here are some examples
And here's just a small collection of German Cosplayers at several events
But normally the Cosplayer pick someone the like or love from their favorite anime, manga, game, comic, etc. to impersonate those on their own, sometimes because the person is just cool or because they like several characteristics the Cosplayers would like to have, too.
There are also many competitions, some are even nationwide or international (DCM in Germany or WCS worldwide with its final in Japan (Nagoya).
Those who are participating in the big contests use many weeks or even months to craft or sew their perfect costume, trying to even match the material or at least make it look in the original artwort / concept sketch - for armory KobraCast or Worblas Finest Art are used a lot (Cast4Art - links in my Link section)
It's hard to define the origin of cosplay, there is no real patient ZERO for this and it's no zombie like crisis... - some people even might consider KISS as Cosplayers although I would define their masks / characters more Kabuki-like than cosplay-like, but from some point of view it may be plausible.
The Cosplay phenomen has its roots in Japan at least the word itself, that's also why most characters are chosen from manga / Anime / Games, although dressing up in a costume is not invented by Japan, carneval or halloween is celebrated throughout the world, so what's the difference, well, cosplay doesn't need a purpose like those mentioned, in Tokyo, especially at the bridge of Harajuku's JR-station Cosplayers meet almost every Sunday - in other countries they normally dress up for conventions, although photo shootings outside of the cosplay "season" are getting more and more popular and are not common anymore.
That's it for today's topic, it might be only a rough summary, but I hope you got a clue about it now.
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